The most important strategy question

Which long-term drivers are your firm aligned with?

Firms that use Thematic Strategy have a chance of market dominance, and those that ignore it will probably fail.

That may sound direct, but it reflects what I see repeatedly in my research. The firms that win over the long term are those that align their choices with the long-term drivers of technological and social change. The firms that lose fall into decisions shaped by habit, short-term pressures, or legacy assumptions.

Thematic Strategy gives leaders a practical way to avoid that.

It starts with selecting three or four drivers of technological and social change that meet the basic tests of structural change, cross-industry relevance, and actionability. These drivers become the anchor for strategic planning and the guide for investment. A firm that does this well creates a clear and consistent sense of direction.

This selection must then shape competitive position. The strongest firms convert their chosen drivers into a position that others find difficult to match. They design products, channels, experiences, and business models that leverage the selected drivers. This is where competitive advantage begins to take shape, as the firm builds on forces that strengthen each year.

The final step is resource alignment. This is the part that many companies get wrong, as it addresses the firm's fundamental structure and shape. When a firm aligns its resources to leverage its selected drivers, it creates a new capability that compounds over time and with a coherence that competitors struggle to copy.

When I study global leaders across sectors, I see the same sequence. They identify the drivers that matter. They turn them into a distinct position. They concentrate their resources. It is a disciplined, repeatable process.

Firms that refuse to engage with long-term drivers usually fall behind in small steps at first. Then the gap widens. Eventually, they face a market shaped by forces they never planned for.

Thematic Strategy does not guarantee dominance. It creates the conditions for it. Without it, the conditions rarely appear at all.

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I write about Thematic Strategy - a method I developed during my PhD that directs firms to leverage drivers of technological and social change to achieve market dominance.

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